Wilderness Truth

I find myself upon a lonely road

My shoulders buckle ‘neath a heavy load

The acid from my belly burns within

I count my ribs through tired and stretched out skin

My enemy has forged a twisted sword

Into my mind distorted truth he’s poured

He casts a darkened shadow on my light
And thinks that he can somehow cloud my sight

But this my enemy has failed to see

The Living Word is rooted deep in in me

I know the Author and I know His Word

His truth built into me, not merely heard

I’ve been redeemed with something more than gold

God’s promises upon my life unfold

There’s now a man beside me in the fight

Whose sword will put my enemy to flight

Living in a Good Land

“For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land—a land with brooks, streams, and deep springs gushing out into the valleys and hills; a land with wheat and barley, vines and fig trees, pomegranates, olive oil and honey; a land where bread will not be scarce and you will lack nothing; a land where the rocks are iron and you can dig copper out of the hills.”  (Deuteronomy 8:7-8)

I came across this verse a few weeks ago.  I was off work with a viral infection.  There used to be a time when colds lasted three days.  On the third day I would rise from the sick bed, get dressed and go back to work.  There was always a residue – a sniffley nose, perhaps, or a bit of a gravelly voice, but I could function.  These days I seem to take a little longer to bounce back.

I remember reading this verse and thinking it was so not my experience.  I wasn’t living in a good land but a very miserable one.  Bread might have been plentiful in the bread bin, but I had no appetite to eat it.

The verse became a rallying point for my spirit and I was stirred to pray.  In prayer I claimed the good land that God intended me to possess.  I claimed fruitfulness and refreshing.  I claimed abundance in every aspect of life.  I claimed wholeness and satisfaction.  I claimed enough and more to share with others.

I might have done some claiming, but nothing really changed.  I was still ill.  I was still coughing and sneezing and mopping up mucus.  Nothing in the physical world changed, but I was convinced that something in the heavenlies had changed.  I felt that a battle had been won on some higher plain.  I might have been physically done in, but in my spirit I was a victor. 

The verse became a rallying point again today.  It was nothing to do with praying for my own needs this time, but praying for others. 

Friends and family seem not to be living in a good land right now. 

I don’t have any answers to pull them out of the mire they have sunk into.  The things that work for me, don’t always work for other people because we are wired differently.   Sometimes there is nothing that I can do to physically help.  I live too far away.

So I prayed.  On their behalf I claimed fruitfulness and refreshing for them.  I claimed abundance in every aspect of their life.  I claimed wholeness and satisfaction.  I claimed that they would experience enough and more to share with others.

I remember Martin Luther King in one of his speeches declaring that the fight has been a long one and he needs some victories.  I am feeling much like that.  The battles my friends and families are fighting are not like the three day viral infections, but seemingly endless with no light at the end of a tunnel.  They need some victories.

Lord, let them see and experience the good land you have brought them into.

Let Daddy Deal With It

One of my nieces has just posted up a rant, for want of a better word, on her facebook page. It’s the summer break from her university course, and I suppose that seeing as she is not using her room, the landlord has rented it out to someone else. However, she had paid August’s rent. It turns out that the July tennants are still there although they were meant to leave at the end of the month. My niece is paying her landlord for someone else to be in her room...so she’s not happy.

Her post ended with the words “I don’t know what to do:( xxx”

My adivce was to ask the landlord for a refund!

Sometimes I forget how not everyone is as old and cantackerous as I am. I have no hestitation in recognising those times when someone has stamped on what I think are my rights. Some people call it assertiveness. At times I have it in bucketloads!

My niece’s response to aksing for the refund was “daddy's gonna call up and have a go”.

“What?” thought I. “Fight your own battles, girl!”

Quick as a lightning flash, the Holy Spirit spoke.

“Why don’t you let ‘Daddy’ call up and have a go?”

I have been in too many battles over the last few months – not with landlords and rent refunds. My battles have been the spiritual ones. They have been about how to hold on to joy in the midst of so much pain, or how to hold on to hope in the midst of so much suffering. I had thought it was all about being strong and not letting go.

I see now that perhaps it is not about that at all. It is about stepping to one side and letting my heavenly “Daddy call up and have a go.”

Let Daddy deal with it!